


abandon all hope

by orphan_account



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c., Real Person Fiction
Genre: Introspection, Non-Linear Narrative, One-Sided Relationship, Slow Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 15:07:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It would’ve been easier if she saw this as a game, because then, she would know that one day, it would all end.





	abandon all hope

When they approach her for the job, as she knew they would, Hope’s first instinct is to decline. Politely say no. Offer up some alternatives, maybe even help search for them.

“Let me be candid, Hope,” Ivanka sighs. “We can’t last too long without someone in this job, and Sarah can’t handle the whole thing on her own.” And Hope wants to respond by pointing out that there’s still Sean, technically, still on the payroll, just sitting around in his office, not contributing at all.

Perfect levels of incompetence, but there’s no way anyone would let him take the job, even in the interim.

Interim.

“I don’t want to have the job,” she says, slowly. Her hands are folded in her lap, one over the other, over her thighs. She looks just like Ivanka sitting across from her, almost like inverted images of each other. Two beautiful, almost identical women. Two of the most powerful women in the free world.

“You’d be perfect, though,” Ivanka tries to insist. “You know the President as well as anyone does and he trusts you.” Her composure is wavering, she’s getting a little exasperated. After all, Hope is supposed to bend to her will. She must not forget herself.

She takes a slow breath. “I can take the role on an interim basis,” she says. She imagines squeezing her thighs together and digging her fingers into her palms. Her nails are already red. She doesn’t do any of this, of course. “As long as you can assure me that a new, permanent communications director will be found.”

Ivanka looks to the door, where Kelly is standing, and he inclines his head. She turns back to Hope and smiles, and it’s a genuine smile but that doesn’t matter much. She’s pleased, not with her but with herself, for getting her to agree with this.

No one really cares Hope said ‘interim’. It only matters that she said yes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hello?” It’s less of a question and more of a yawn vaguely shaped like a question. Either way, it’s kind of endearing – that is, if she found things like this endearing anymore.

“Hi,” she replies, quietly.

There’s a couple of seconds of silence, followed by the shifting of fabric and a couple of small sighs and offhanded mumbles, and then Maggie says, “It’s two in the morning.”

“I know.” If this were a movie set in the nineties, Hope would be sitting in a very pink room, wearing a fuzzy robe, her back against the wall and her phone in her lap with her finger tangling the cord. None of that applies now, except maybe the fuzzy robe.

Maggie sighs again. She waits, then breaks the silence. “Is there something you’d like to say, Hope?”

Hope thinks about it for a moment. “No,” she says, and hangs up. She sets her phone aside and slides back into bed. She has a long day ahead of her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She can see him watching out of the corner of her eye, and she waits a few moments, until he’s looking her way again, to frown. Just the right amount of concern, right amount of exasperation, little disappointment but mostly resignation.

Scaramucci leans forward. “What is it?” he asks. They haven’t developed a sense of familiarity yet but he’s smart enough to know what role Hope plays here, knows to value what she says and does.

“Nothing, really,” Hope hums casually, her bottom lip slightly jutting. She sighs and shifts back. “Just another leak, of course.”

His brow furrows and he holds out his hand. “Let me see.” She turns her phone over, showing him the tweet, and he frowns further, crossing his arms with a huff. “I can’t believe it. I just – I literally _just_ fucking told everyone not to leak.”

Hope shrugs. She pulls her phone back and crosses her legs, pretending to be on her phone again. It gives her the air of aloofness and makes her just a slight bit more invisible. Luckily, Scaramucci is just narrowminded enough for this to work – just like everyone else here.

“You did give that enlightening speech to everyone,” she reminds. Her voice is light and soft. “Perhaps they aren’t as patriotic as you thought.”

“Damn fucking straight,” he mumbles under his breath. She bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling.

“Maybe Ryan Lizza would be more willing to help,” she says, slowly. “Though, considering his profession, I doubt he would.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Lizza – I think I heard that name before, sounds Italian.” And Hope’s fingers nearly drop her phone because this might be the easiest con she’s done yet. It took her so long to build up Bannon, and she’s got Scaramucci on the hook in less than an hour.

He stands, dusting off his jacket and straightening out his shoulders. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think I’ll talk to him. I bet he would tell me. We’re like brothers, after all.”

She watches him leave and wonders how far he will go.

Later, Bannon will coin the name “suicide bomber” for him – humorous, though it did take out his last remaining ally in the West Wing. And it’s a little more humorous, a little more ironic that the nickname would outlast the man who coined it.

But isn’t that how it always goes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her phone is on her nightstand, right beside the open container of nail polish, and she’s finishing off her right foot when she hears a crash come through the speaker. She sits up and looks over. “I assume that was still you trying to cook?”

“Yup,” Maggie says, and her sigh is laced with static. It makes her sound less like a real person and more like a caricature, like a person who doesn’t actually exist outside of these manufactured moments. Hope almost misses it when she says, “I assume you’re still painting your nails?”

“Just finished my feet,” Hope replies. She taps the foam separating her toes, making sure it’s secure, then closes the cap on the polish. She leans over to pick out another one, for her fingers now. Something nude. Innocuous and effectively invisible.

“Huh,” Maggie says. And then there’s effective silence again, punctuated by ambient outbursts – electronic beeping, water boiling, Maggie humming under her breath, television in an adjacent room. And then, again, she speaks. “What are you going to do when the interview comes out?”

The interview. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Mr. Trump said what he’s always said and the Times just dictated it like they always did and maybe there were a few droplets of news that the pundits will eagerly lick up but.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter, does it?

A timer goes off. Maggie sighs. “Well,” she says, “always nice to talk to you, Hope.” And then she hangs up. And she’s off, off to sit down with her husband and children over a nice family meal where everyone is around someone they care about.

Hope lives alone. She finishes painting her nails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bannon snaps his fingers. “Church lady.”

Hope looks up from her phone. She doesn’t care, but she knows he wants her to. “Excuse me?” she says.

“Kelly’s nickname,” he clarifies. “You know, because he’s like that lady in every fucking church that turns around and shushes you when you’re not even talking and everyone fucking hates her but they respect her. The church lady.”

It’s a stupid nickname. She smiles. “Good one,” she hums, a little.

“I know,” he replies. He leans back, kicking his feet up on the desk, and pulls out his phone, likely to run it by his former friends at Breitbart.

She’s careful not to sound too calculating when she says, “I thought you were resigning sometime last week.”

Bannon bristles, very visibly, his fingers clenching around his phone, but his voice is a forced casual as he shrugs. “Yes,” he says, “but Kelly and I agreed that it would be too tumultuous for me to leave this very moment.”

“I see,” Hope says, slowly. She uncrosses her legs and crosses them again, right over left this time. Her phone is in one hand and the other rests on her knee. “Shouldn’t you be doing something to try and change his mind? Or at least Mr. Trump’s mind? After all, he is the one who makes the final decision.”

“Not while he’s neutered by Kelly,” he mumbles, scoffing slightly. He shakes his head. “What do you expect me to do, call up someone in the mainstream media and tell them how invaluable I am to the administration.”

She says nothing, just tilts her head to the side and looks at him. It’s easy, he’s grown weak, a little desperate, clinging to whatever ideas that might save him from his untimely death. She doesn’t smile at all when he sits up, scrolling through his phone with a more determined look.

But when she’s called to the Oval, on the way there, she lets a slight one slip on. She’s allowed to celebrate some victories, isn’t she, in this long and tedious war?

She prints out the interview when it comes out and folds it up, puts it in her folder as she pulls out the list of names and crosses out ‘Steve Bannon’. A long and tedious effort, but it finally paid off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m surprised,” Hope says, pausing a second, just to draw the moment out. She starts over. “I’m surprised that you haven’t reported on these meetings or anything.”

“Maybe I’m not a good journalist,” Maggie replies.

“I should call Nate Silver and tell him you finally admitted that.”

And when Maggie laughs, Hope’s breath catches in her throat.

She still doesn’t know why she calls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope steps inside Kelly’s office, watching him watch all three of the TVs, all of them turned onto some cable news show. And, as she sets down the latest set of files, she asks, “What does Sebastian Gorka do here?”

She steps out before he can even start to think about it. It’s almost too easy. But there’s no telling what the future holds.

It would’ve been easier if she saw this as a game. Because then there would be a clear ending, a clear victory, a clear everything. She would know that what she’s doing will all lead to some final and definite goal. She would know that one day, it would all end.

Instead, she’s just doing this. And she has no idea when it will end. If it will even end at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She spends a few moments debating it, then she grabs her phone with both hands, careful not to drop it into the tub, as she presses Maggie’s number and calls her.

“Congratulations,” Maggie says, as soon as she picks up. When Hope doesn’t speak, she chuckles a little. “Let me guess, you didn’t want the job.”

“No,” Hope sighs. She leans back. The water is at her neck. Her elbow is in the water. She sighs again.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Maggie hums, “I think you’re a perfect fit for this job.”

“Do you, now,” Hope tries to ask, but it comes out as a statement instead.

And then Maggie says, “It’s what you deserve.” She doesn’t bother to elaborate, doesn’t bother to explain, just makes this grandiose statement and hangs up. Just in her style.

Hope pulls her phone away from her ear and types out, in slow and measured clicks, _You’re a fucking coward, Maggie._ She sends it, and, without even turning off the screen, lets it fall from her hands. It barely makes a splash when it hits the water but thuds quite heavily when it hits the bottom of the tub.

The question as to why Hope calls, well, that could take a couple of days to answer as she’d have to evaluate everything in her life and since it’s both interconnected with and completely separate from what she’s doing now, in the administration, it would take some time to define.

But the question of why Maggie picks up, that’s completely elusive. She picks up because she’s a reporter, perhaps, but she never reports on their conversations. Not even when Hope stopped telling her they were off the record. The conversations were never of substance and, likely, would never be, but.

She picks up anyway. Why?

She’s not particularly smart, not particularly beautiful, just an average woman in a sea of average people who come to the White House, and yet. Hope finds her hand trialing up her thigh. Her other arm hangs off the side of the tub and she leans her head back, closing her eyes.

It feels like more of a chore than it should be, more of a necessity than a pleasure. Two fingers sliding in and out, sharp nails pushing against her walls, while her thumb rubs around her clit. She wonders what it would be like if Maggie were to touch her. She wouldn’t, but if she did – but she wouldn’t. But _if._

 _If_ she did, would it be a chore to her too? Would she put on a façade of gentleness, cupping her breasts and kissing down her neck, pushing her down on the bed and making her moan? Or would she just look at her with a cold and blank stare, miles away from her body, just fucking her carelessly? Would she make her scream, make her beg for it, or would she even care?

Does anyone even care anymore, about anything?

Hope parts her lips and her expression barely changes when she comes. She just sits there for a couple of moments, soaking everything in, before she stands and drains the tub. She takes a shower instead.

**Author's Note:**

> some good articles on hope [here](http://www.npr.org/2017/08/28/545899480/hope-hicks-is-a-trump-team-survivor-and-now-interim-communications-director) and [here](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/22/hope-hicks-trump-profile-240832).


End file.
